Fucking phones. Write letters instead!

Oh god. I need help! Help me please! Help help. I fucked up seriously bad at work Friday afternoon and my boss is livid and I really seriously need advice. I will apologize in advance for the fact that you'll have to read, like, my life story.

See, my start-up company has hired a guy in Chicago so we're setting up office space for him in the same office suite as our sister company there (which is the same setup we are in here). The guy (who is totally nice and easygoing and will not be mad at me at all) starts Monday, as in tomorrow. I had to order all his equipment and get it delivered there in time. And I had to arrange to have his phone lines installed or turned on or whatever by then, too.

Now, when my boss told me to do this, like a month ago, he said just to set the appointment for this past Friday, as the guy was starting "sometime in October." So I had the appointment, and I told the lady when I set up our account that we shared office space with that other company. And about once a week my boss would ask me to contact the me-equivalent at the Chicago office to make sure she'd be around to show the technician around, and that she knew where the server room was, and basically that everything would be smooth sailing for the phone guy. Everytime he asked me to contact her I did, and everything was always fine. I called her Thursday, and the phone company Thursday to make sure the appointment was still on, and everything was fine.

Then it was Friday (Black Friday to me). The appointment was between 1 and 5pm. At 3-something, I check our voicemail, and we had gotten a message while we were on the phone (which means it did not show on the caller ID, so we didn't know who it was from) from the technician, saying he was a few minutes away, but he didn't leave his number. Then like an hour goes by, because I was busy, My boss leaves work early to go to the gym and then meet his wife, and on his way out he tells me that the phone HAS to be done that day, because someone is coming to hook up the network connections for the computer Monday, and the phones have to work for that, apparently. (Also the new guy is actually starting work Monday. So suddenly this appointment is, like, direly important.) So it's 4:15 before I realized that the Chicago girl had never emailed me that he was there (which was the latest thing my boss had told me to get her to do). I email her and he's not there yet. I am freaking out. I call the phone company and learn that the technician went to the building and was not allowed in by security, because he gave them the name of our company and they had no record of it existing in their building (!!!) so they turned him away.

While the lady explains this, my life is flashing before my eyes. Also I am thinking fuck fuck fucking shit oh god I'll be fired fucking hell. I get really mad and tell her that the guy obviously had our number, as he called us once, so why would he not have called again WHILE STANDING IN THE LOBBY so I could have sorted it out??! Obviously the phone lady cannot answer this question. She transferrs me to the scheduling department. I speak to another very nice lady who I take all my frustrations out on (sorry, SBC!). I tell her that he absolutely must come back and do it now, today, it has to be done. She says the next appointment is Wednesday. I tell her "Listen, seriously, I'll be fired. My boss will fire me. It has to be done today or I will get fired." (Oscar moment. I was, like, shaking with fear at this point.) She's like, "Um. Please hold."

So she comes back after a long time and tells me it can be Monday, but she was not able to get a definite block of time so as of now it is scheduled for 9am to 7pm, and I need to call them directly first thing Monday morning to get a definite time set up. This makes no sense to me, but whatever. Then she offers to take $35 off the installation fee. Which is great in theory, but will not save me from the ire of the boss.

So it's after 5:30 now, and I leave the office to go to the gym before I meet my friends. On the way I call the Chicago girl and tell her what happened. She's like, "Oh yeah, we haven't officially notified the building office that you guys are moving in, so he really needed to reference our name when he arrived." She says this in a joking, lighthearted way, not knowing that while it's all fun and games for her, I am about to be killed. Yay, ineptitude! Three cheers!

So then I call my boss, and I get his voicemail thankfully. I tell him what happened, and am very careful to start off with the way I fixed the problem (ie that the guy will come back Monday) and THEN explain what happened, as I read somewhere that this is a more professional and capable way to tell someone you fucked up than to just explain this long-ass sob story right up front. I wind up the conversation by saying, "And, um, I'm just going into the gym now, so if you're going to, um, fire me, it'll have to be over voicemail." Which I thought would be a helpful thing for me to say. My boss and I are generally on very good terms and joke around a lot and are very sarcastic, so I really really did think he would think this was cute, and that it would soften his cold blackened heart. Hoo boy, no.

Then I'm in the locker room when my phone rings and it's him. I am an idiot, so I answered it. The first thing he says is: "Look. If you're going to leave me a message about how badly you've screwed up, there's no need to be catty." I am shocked. I say, "What??" He thinks I am deaf and just repeats the exact sentence again, adding, " 'If you're going to fire me, do it by voicemail?' There;s no need to be catty." I am stunned and petrified. I say something like, "No, I was really...nervous and embarassed. I was trying to be self-effacing, not catty!" He's like, whatever, and then moves on to tell me how he had told me countless times to make sure everything was ready for this, and that I obviously didn't follow his instructions, so now I "had a lot to do Monday, and was going to have to babysit this project from start to finish." And "I don't know what it's going to take for you to actually do this right," but that I had "better figure that out." I was trying to protest and tell him that I had contacted that girl every time he asked, and that I had no idea why the technician didn't call me to tell me there was a problem, and that I had no idea why the building office didn't know we were moving in, and he just cut me off, and was like, "Look, I don't have time for all this. You messed up, and obviously they're not taking care of things on their end, so you need to do all the thinking for them, and you need to fix this. Okay?" I say okay weakly, and he hangs up.

Then I still feel so bad and embarassed over the "catty" thing that I call him right back and I say "Look, I feel really bad about the way things ended just now, and I really did not mean to come off as catty, because I hope you know that I'd never be flippant about my performance, and it's really important to me that you know that." And he's like, "Fine, but I'm on the other line with so-and-so about a $17,000 check that you're going to need to cut on Monday and FedEx out ALSO, so can we talk about this on Monday?" And I say okay and he hangs up.

And I just feel so awful and embarassed and tiny about it all. I hate having people be mad at me, or disappointed in me, which I know is not a good quality as it makes me give in too often just to end a fight, but in this situation I just feel so terrible that he would, like, jump down my throat all accusingly like that. I mean, what did he think, I was being all "I messed up, ha ha, and whatever, I don't care"?! I thought he'd be able to tell, since my voice was SHAKING throughout the whole message, that I was trying to defuse things, but obviously not.

And ALSO I have NO IDEA what more I can do on the whole phone thing. I mean, I'm not actually in Chicago, so I had no idea there was so much security to get into that building. I guess I can call the phone company again and make sure that the guy references that other company when he comes. But honestly, I can't think of anything else. Maybe I am an idiot. Anyway, I need help. Also I need tissues, because I'm like crying all over my keyboard, because he's all pissed off at and disappointed in me, and I just want to quit and run off to school already. Man, when I own my own gallery I will NEVER treat my minions this way. Also I will never blow a gasket over a FUCKING PHONE INSTALLATION, because really that's what all this drama has come down to, and that's just ridiculous.

So, how has YOUR weekend been?